“Welcome to Mars” follows the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity from the second they crash-land on the planet to many months into their ongoing mission. NOVA producer Mark Davis covered the story from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as it unfolded and provided a unique, behind-the-scenes take on this voyage of discovery, whose primary goal is to find evidence that liquid water once existed on Mars.

Mars Orbiter Mission was launched on the 5th of November at 14:38 pm from SDHC, SHAR, Sriharikota. This is India’s first interplanetary mission to planet Mars with an orbiter craft designed to orbit Mars in an elliptical orbit. The Mission is primarily a technological mission considering the critical mission operations and stringent requirements on propulsion and other bus systems of spacecraft. One of the main objectives of the first Indian mission to Mars is to develop the technologies required for design, planning, management and operations of an interplanetary mission.